Dealing with guilt, the absolute son of a bitch.

Ever done something to someone that you REALLY shouldn’t have done?

The sort of thing that’s left them livid with you and left you feeling like your stomach has exited your asshole and is plummeting towards the centre of the earth.

Come on then? Which of you bastards has done this?

Raise your hands.

Yep, me too.

I’ve been an utter bastard and done things that I didn’t even think I was capable of but I had a really good excuse for doing it all.

I’m human.

And as a human I’m unfortunately capable of doing horrific things, I mean I haven’t done anything that bad but I’ve sure as hell upset and wounded people that I was supposed to love or care about.

It hurt them, it hurt me and the pain of the guilt is up there with the most intense of all emotions.

Dealing with guilt can be a long-term process or it can be a relatively short-lived thing. The length of a process can often be correlated with how bad YOU think you should be feeling about it.

Guilt is an absolute son of a bitch but it is actually a really helpful emotion when you understand it a bit better.

What is guilt anyway, other than a big bastard.

We have within all of us a set of core values, these are those things that we believe are absolutes, they are that which make us whole and go a long way in defining who we are as people.

For example, being completely honest may well be a core value of yours. You like to feel like you can trust people and by being honest with people your hope is that they respond in kind.

If you’re in a relationship then you will have a core value with regards to loyalty to that partner, this might vary massively depending on your upbringing, Mormons and Catholics would have rather different views on this.

This goes across the board to create the foundation of your personality, I think you get the idea now.

Any action that we take which causes us to feel guilt is likely to be something which is in violation of our core values.

Side Note

This is the same whether the action we took as intentional or accidental.

Most decent humans will have a core value which says we shouldn’t hurt other people, if we were to cause a car accident in which people were hurt we would feel guilty.

End of Side Note

So what is guilt? Guilt is a big waving flag that is thrown high into the air that has “you went totally against your core values and you should feel bad about that” on it.

Guilt’s job is to slap us in the face and remind us what our core values are and to make sure that moving forwards we stick to them a lot better.

As much as guilt feels truly flippin’ horrendous it is genuinely trying to steer us back on to the path that we’re most comfortable on.

And yes, I understand that just reading that all and understanding guilt isn’t going to change anything for you at all.

Dealing with Guilt

So you’ve done something awful and guilt is really riding your ass just telling constantly reminding you how much of a bastard/bitch you’ve been.

What next?

Well this is how to own your guilt:

• To own guilt, we must “sit” in the feeling of guilt for a little while
• Think about the scenario from which your guilty feelings stem, with all the circumstances, and think about exactly what it is you did and to whom you did it.
  How did it affect them?
  How did it affect other people?
  What consequences did your actions cause?
  (Yes, I know this is really unpleasant to do as I’ve done this myself, but this is an essential part of the exercise)
• Ask yourself if there is anything left for you to learn from the guilt you’re feeling. Can the guilt teach you anything else about yourself, your situation, your future – anything?

• If your guilt is communicating anything new to you at all, then listen to it and learn the lesson. Learning the lesson might take time but the important thing here is understanding what needs to be changed and what you need to learn

• If your guilt is just repeating the same tired, old story and messages that you’ve already been over 1,000 times, then you are done with that guilt.
  You can literally tell the guilt (out loud if you wish) that you’re done with it. And decide to move on.

• Repetition of this exercise will probably be necessary.
  

What about the thing that you did to cause the hurt?

If you’ve read any of my other blogs particularly “the illusion of control” then I am genuinely hopeful that you have already learnt that we don’t have to concern ourselves with things that are outside our control. 

This includes things that are in the past; without wanting to appear blasé, “What’s done is done”. 

This doesn’t mean you are off the hook, though, by any means! 

We must take the lesson from whatever has happened and use this to actually improve ourselves. The obstacles we face in life are opportunities even if they are our own mistakes – use your own mistakes to create personal growth.

What to do with the person we have wronged?
Well, you do what is necessary to make it up to them, even if this includes accepting that you can no longer be a part of their life.
Show them the lesson you have learnt and make efforts to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Once retribution is achieved, however, they don’t get to hold that over you anymore and, until you let go of your own guilt, they will be able to hold onto it as well. 

“To err is human; to forgive, divine.” 
Alexander Pope

What if you’ve done something that the person who you’ve wronged doesn’t know about – should we keep this from them to protect them from harm and us from shame? 

Absolutely not – the truth will out. 

Although we can often feel we are doing the right thing by concealing our wrongdoings, it is always better in the long run to be honest – holding onto guilt, particularly for anything you consider to be badly wrong, can destroy you from the inside out. 

Give the person you have wronged the chance to be divine.

Remember that you can and will make mistakes, just the same as everyone else. 

That doesn’t make you a terrible person – it makes you human.